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Meanwhile in Haiti: A Christian Perspective on Donald, Hillary, Elections, and Life

The media got swallowed today. By a video tape some ten years old.

Hurricane Matthew began to settle, yes.

But the rising and falling of storm surges is not really the reason we tune into coverage of a hurricane, is it?

Isn’t it the people who will be impacted that we really care about? Are they not the real reason we tune in?

Because if that’s the case, then isn’t NOW when the coverage should REALLY begin?

But Donald and Hillary’s war swallows the airwaves.

Meanwhile in Haiti, the death toll rises to over 900.

Meanwhile in Haiti, the number of children without parents, which was 400,000 give or take, has now increased.

And meanwhile globally, the number of orphans is somewhere between 143 and 210 million.

But really, who is counting?

Apparently not CNN or FOX News.

And in the United states alone? 415,000 children filtered through the foster system last year.

But again, who is counting?

Because what’s a life when we’ve got crass, crude comments from a man no one would ever have considered nominating for High Moral Character Man of the Year anyway?

What’s a life when we’ve got Benghazi?

What’s a life when politics reign and evangelicals and non-evangelicals get swept away by the hurricane that is an election?

An election trumps a life? Really?

I can’t speak for non-evangelicals, but I do know that evangelicals were never once called to get tangled up in civilian issues. In fact, 2Timothy 2: 3,4 speaks directly to this:

Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.

One could argue the affairs of this life are things like careers or boyfriends and girlfriends.

Or one could accept that maybe, just maybe, the believer has a purpose more fine-tuned and more specific than anything that begins and ends here on earth.

Maybe the purpose Jesus mentioned when He was with us on earth?

And He said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ (Matthew 22:37-39)

Maybe the purpose Jesus mentioned when he left us?

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19,20)

Maybe the purpose the Spirit of God inspired when James wrote:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.( James 1:27)

Jesus.

He’s problematic for us if we take Him seriously.

Because he

DOES

NOT

FIT

With the shouting and the screaming and the name calling and the condemning and the judging.

He doesn’t.

His response to sin?

Christians? Our SAVIOR’S RESPONSE to sin?

HE

GAVE HIS

LIFE

He forgave.

He redeemed.

He restored.

He did not name call.

He said, Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. (John 8:7)

It’s inconvenient because His responses would apply to both Hillary and Donald.

Both.

And that’s not convenient when we want to amp up a political party to the height of holiness.

As if one is more holy than the other.

Really?

A manmade thing?

Let’s reason.

Let’s think.

No.

None, no not one is righteous. (Rom. 1:10)

Not one.

Not me.

Not you.

Not Donald.

Not Hillary.

Do we REALLY think we are so holy that we can verbally throw stones?

And you know how people say things like, “It’s a distraction tactic! Stick to the issues.”?

They are SO very right.

It IS a distraction tactic, but not by the media, bless them.

By the enemy.

Did we already forget that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood? Our battle is not with a democrat or a republican, a male or a female, a homosexual or a heterosexual.

Our battle is against principalities and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And may I just ask this question?

Who among us has spent as much or more time making disciples this week as we have spent listening to political commentary?

Really?

Because that, my friends, is the distraction.

It’s a distraction from the marching orders our Savior gave us.

Love.

Feed.

Restore.

Heal.

Make disciples.

Then teach them.

Then make more disciples.

There are some 500,000 homeless here in the United States alone.

Are we, the believers, caring for the poor? Actually DOING the caring?

Focus.

Focus on the priorities of Jesus Christ.

YES, he values life.

Life of the unborn.

Life of the born.

Life of the lesbian.

Life of the drug addict.

Life of the orphan.

Life of the lost soul.

All of it.

Every, single bit of human life because every single human life carries an eternal soul.

Do politics matter?

I understand that’s a bigger question than I can answer when philosophers and theologians have battled and wrestled and discussed this for centuries.

But ultimately, Jesus made this comment about politics, Give to Caesar what is Caeasar’s. (Mark 12:17)

And the Holy Spirit inspired these words:

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. Romans 13:1-2

So, believer?

We should pay our taxes.

We should obey the law.

And beyond that . . . well, now we have to stick to the Bible.

And the Bible tells us that God said:

It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding. (Daniel 2:21)

Now that is a political game-changer, is it not?

Because it turns out it isn’t elections that put kings in place.

It is our God.

And it isn’t about a leftist agenda or a right-wing agenda; it is about the agenda and purpose of our sovereign God. And if somehow the democrats or republicans can demote our God’s supreme authority over elections, then our God is absolutely not worth our time. If we elevate the right or the left to a position of authority over God’s purposes, then we have deified a donkey and an elephant. We who claim to worship the one true God have literally created an idol out of an abstract political machine. This is not Bible-believing.

We get so worked up over civilian affairs and somehow assume there are new answers. We discard the Bible and wrestle the issues like a steer in a rodeo when we could be putting feet to the instructions of our Savior.

In the end?

OUR GOD WINS.

Not Hillary. Not Donald.

YAWEH God.

And then the Holy Spirit added, For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. (Romans 13:6)

Somehow, this repositions the establishment, the media, and the republican and democratic candidates to servants not of one another, but servants of the MOST HIGH GOD.

Why?

Job knew why. I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. (Job 42:2)

No election gets to thwart God’s ultimate plans. So, what IS the purpose of God?

Jesus said this, I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. ( John 5:30.)

Then he died.

He rose.

He redeemed all mankind.

The purpose of God?

That all mankind would be in a relationship with Him.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.( 2 Peter 3:9) God desires all mankind to be in a relationship with Him.

Do we vote? Of course we do. But we do not allow an election to derail God’s purpose in our lives. Politics may be complicated, but our marching orders are simple. Our gameplan is already outlined in scripture. We just need to obey.

More than anything I’m pained by this:

That evangelicals are more known for endorsing or condemning mere human beings than for finding homes for the 415,000 children in foster care in the United States.

That evangelicals are more known for political name-calling than we are for uniting and sending aid to Haiti where cholera, malnourishment, and homelessness will take human lives like a thief in the night while we’ve fallen asleep at the watch.

I am a follower of Christ and I neither endorse Donald Trump nor condemn him.

I neither endorse Hillary Clinton nor condemn her.

Were I to meet either of them, do you know how I would view them?

How God would desire me to view them?

As human beings made in His divine image.

They are not my enemy.

They are not the enemy of the United States.

And they are certainly NOT the enemy of evangelicals. They are the very people evangelicals should develop relationships with!

They are mere fallen human beings.

JUST

LIKE

ME

Just like me.

Were I to meet them my goal would be the goal Jesus gave me, Make disciples.

Only Jesus can transform.

Do I accept the words of Donald Trump caught on tape over a decade ago?

Goodness gracious, a resounding and resolute NO. Absolutely not.

And were I to meet him, I’d say this, “Mr. Trump, your comments were absolutely wrong. You did NOT value female life. You saw it as an object with which you could pleasure yourself instead of a reflection of the image of God. You were so wrong and you will give an account for that. But not to me. In the words of Jesus Christ, ‘Go and sin no more.’ Want to have coffee and discuss this Jesus that said He wouldn’t condemn you, but He’d give you a drink that would so satisfy your thirst that you wouldn’t go looking to women for your soul needs again?”

And the same could be said to Hillary of Benghazi.

Believers, let us join together in a single voice that insists on this one thing:

We will BE ABOUT OUR FATHER’S AGENDA, and under no circumstances will we be known for spewing venomous talk, angry rhetoric, hateful facebook posts, mean-spirited mudslinging, or shaking a proverbial self-righteous fist of condemnation at either candidate.

We will love all humanity. That is what Jesus Christ did to the point of death.

He loved.

Does the election matter? Of course it does. We do in fact stand to lose civil and religious freedoms. We do in fact get to vote our values, our beliefs, our priorities. I understand about Supreme Court Justices, and I understand about losing religious freedom in the name of political correctness.

I also understand that my God is sovereign. and if He’s sovereign than not even the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice I don’t agree with can change HIS PURPOSES.

So, does the election matter? It matters tremendously.

But there is a far more important value that all believers should fight for.

Eternity.

In the end, I don’t get to take the president with me to eternity, but I do get to take souls.

Go. Make Disciples. Instead of making enemies, make a cake and deliver it to your neighbor.

No more distractions. Instead of being side-swiped by the latest scandal, deliver the scandalous grace of Jesus.

No more name calling. Instead let’s call out to the name of above all names.

No more condemnation. Instead let’s connect sinners to living water.

There is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (Rom. 8:1)

Let us be about our Father’s purposes.

Let us do that.

Because wouldn’t it be amazing if the media had to report this:

“Surprisingly, our ratings dropped when we shifted from covering ways to help victims of the devastating Hurricane Matthew to what we thought was a big ticket political scandal. Surprisingly evangelicals quit watching because they were busy helping the hurting.”

So, meanwhile, in Haiti—there are ways we can help.

Consider giving to this organization where the money can be specifically designated to Hurricane relief and every penny will go directly to just that:

Maintaining our Children’s Home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti of 130 children. We continue to be a “Rescue Center” for abandoned, handicapped, orphaned and children with severe malnutrition and disease, nursing them back to health.

2) We have a staff of forty including nanny’s, a doctor, two nurses, physical therapists, cooks, etc…

3) Our children’s home budget is over 160,000 per year as we also have much medical costs and unexpected emergencies.

4) We provide all medical care and schooling for the children. The young adults go through training programs and trade school that they might reach they’re full potential, spiritually and naturally, and become Christ centered and productive citizens.

Perhaps the best thing a believer can do in a time like this is turn off the TV and the news and turn to our original mandates.

Love.

Let us be found loving.

It’s what our Father does, and it is who He is.

Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that does not love does not know God, for God is love. Beloved, Let us love one another. (I John 4:7,8)

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2 comments

What a great post. You’ve said exactly what I’ve been thinking recently. Exactly.
Can I add one thing?
We should be praying for the salvations of Donald and Hillary. One of them is going to lead this country in less than a month. How awesome would it be, if, whichever one wins, became a sold-out on-fire-for-Jesus evangelical leader?
But that’s just a side note.
It is my prayer that none shall perish. I want to take as many people to heaven with me as possible — and that includes those two.
God is sovereign.
His Will will be done.
Meanwhile, we’ve got some love-showing (and cake-baking) to do!

☆☆☆☆☆ Absolutely Love Love this post! This is the bottom line! This is the basis, not just in our political and global views but in our everyday lives. I believe all things are possible through Jesus Christ. So I absolutely believe Trump/Clintons soul can be won to Jesus Christ. I have had a calling on me to witness for the Lord, my testimony, maybe missionary work. I have had Haiti on my heart long before the hurricane came through. Satan is the enemy! I pray that His will be done in my life. I pray for Haiti, the orphans, the damage from the huricane and all who are working so hard to help. And I am grateful to have found this post….Thank you and may God shower you with many blessings Sarah Olver ❤